Line of Fire NBC premiere ratings and review: Peter Krause got out-rated by Celebrity Name That Tune
NBC gave its shiny new fall drama a plum post-Voice slot and a beloved leading man — and the demo numbers that came back are the stuff of scheduling nightmares.
Here is a sentence NBC did not want to read on Tuesday morning: Line of Fire, the network's big new conspiracy drama starring Peter Krause, premiered Monday at 10 p.m. to a 0.17 rating in the 18-49 demo and 3.20 million viewers — while over on Fox, Celebrity Name That Tune, a game show where famous people guess songs, did a 0.20.
NCIS: New York trailer, premiere date and cast: LL Cool J's Sam Hanna gets a Hawaii Five-0 partner
Yes, Line of Fire more than doubled the game show's total audience (Name That Tune drew 1.52 million). But the demo is the number ad buyers pay for, and by that measure Krause's prestige-adjacent thriller lost to a format that debuted when Truman was president. The Ratings Guide's own headline used the word "abysmally." The Voice did its job as a lead-in — 0.40 and 5.33 million, up on its two previous premieres — which makes the 10 p.m. falloff sting more, not less.
The show itself is... actually good?
That's the twist. Critics like this thing. It sits at 91% on Rotten Tomatoes with a 68 on Metacritic, rare air for a broadcast procedural. Created by Joshua Safran (Quantico, Gossip Girl), it follows the Hollingsworths, a family scattered across the entire federal org chart:
- Peter Krause as Mike, Secret Service supervisory agent and patriarch
- Hope Davis as Jane, his estranged wife and a Deputy U.S. Marshal
- Kat Cunning, Tommy O'Brien, and Taylor Bloom as the FBI, Secret Service, and DOJ offspring
- Charlie Barnett as Jack, the brother everyone presumed dead — a presumption the pilot has notes on
- Plus a supporting bench — Sam Waterston, Anna Chlumsky, Campbell Scott — that most dramas would kill for
Pajiba's review credited Krause with "Coach Taylor energy" and got at why the pilot works:
"There's more character development in the opening episode than an entire season of a Harlan Coben series."
Though the same review hedged its bet in the most quotable way possible:
"Or maybe Joshua Safran just wrote a really good pilot and the wheels will fall off by episode three."
The Krause of it all
The larger irony is that Krause is here because ABC killed him off. His 9-1-1 captain Bobby Nash got one of the most protested character deaths in recent network history, freeing TV's most dependable dad to jump networks — and ScreenRant already ranks the new gig a "massive upgrade" on the material. Premiere-night demos are also not destiny: 10 p.m. dramas live on delayed viewing and streaming, where NBC will be watching the Peacock numbers before panicking. Episode two airs Monday at 10.
Previously we wrote: What year is NCIS: Origins set in? Early enough that the agency isn't even called NCIS yet
